How often is it that Slavoj Zizek, the radical Slovene philosopher, gets cited in sculpture and green design these days? At least once, by the multi-faceted ecoLogic Studio, on their new project, meta-Follies for the Metropolitan Landscape. Responding to Zizek's call for a "new terrifying form of abstract materialism," the design collective has created this vaguely terrifying pavilion that's hard to pin down: is it sculpture, commentary, interactive art? Whatever it is, it's beautiful.

EcoLogic used algorythmic, organic methods in the initial design. The concept behind these incubator-like clusters has to do with a narrative the studio developed, about seekers of the sustainable forgoing their search for refuge and instead taking up residence in this "shanty" version. Made recycled materials , embedded with hundreds of reactive piezeo buzzers. It's a heady, high-concept piece. Here's how the makers describe it, in part:

"[...] within this paradigm aesthetic codes are redefined; the beauty of nature, the proportion of the classic and the idealization of the early ecologists are substituted by the abstraction of digital meta-fields, of mathematical minimal paths, which define an algorithmic manual for the assemblage of new material systems made of processed industrial waste, post-consumer recycled plastic, bundles of electrical wires, solar photovoltaic cells and cheap reused Chinese sound kits.Such an improbable assemblage of ‘urban trash’ is pushed to the limit and engineered to reveal a new Eden, a new aesthetic, spatial and behavioral milieu, a new urban eco-language."